When playing as the United Provinces, you start off with the following regions : Netherlands in the European theatre, Curaçao and Dutch Guyana in the American theatre and Ceylon in the Indian theatre. These are good starting regions because you have some influence in the Carribean and a foothold in the extremely rich Indian theatre and. This makes you the only faction in the game that has territory in all 3 theatres.

To complete the short campaign, you will need to control 15 regions by the end of 1750 which include certain victory regions. These regions are Ceylon, Curaçao, French Guyana, New Andalusia, Dutch Guyana, Carnatica, Flanders, New York, and the Netherlands. As usual, the first thing you will want to do is get as many trade agreements as possible, preferably with the major powers as they will produce the most money. You should also try and get a peace settlement with the Barbary States as this will remove the hassle of your weaker ships being attacked, however it is not necessary. You should then send your gentleman, Willem’s Gravesande to your college at Utrecht so that he can begin researching technology. Personally I will start with the infantry based technology so that you can upgrade your barracks but the choice is up to you.


Usually I would suggest preparing to send as many ships to the trade theatres as possible at this point, however I believe that before you do that you should expand your territory in the European theatre. This is because you only start off with one region if someone was declare war on you and you were unprepared, then you could well lose the game. To prevent this, recruit 2-3 units of line infantry and add them to the army already in the Netherlands and send them to North Africa. From here, you should attack either Morocco or the Barbary States (if you haven't already made peace with them) as neither of them have any allies and so should not put up much of a fight. Once you have done this, you should then focus on expanding your fleet by building Indiamen and sending them ot the 4 available trade theatres. They are relatively cheap to build at 500-600 gold and 50 gold upkeep and only take 2 turns to build. The theatres are Brazil where you can trade for sugar, the Ivory Coast and Madagascar where you can trade for ivory and the East Indies where you can trade for spice. The most profitable ones are ivory and spice however if too many ships are there trading the price may go down to the price of sugar.

Now it is time to expand you empire not only by conquering the trade routes but by conquering the new world. Your first target should be the Leeward Islands and Trinidad and Tobago, as these are both held by pirates and taking them for yourself will get rid of them, allowing you to trade without fear of being attacked. Once both islands have taken, destroy the shipyards there and build trade ports for the added income.

Next it is time to expand deeper into the Indian theatre by taking Carnatica. I would suggest using around 10 units to take this region, not because it has a high garrison but because it is likely to revolt several times and the Mahratta's may try and retake it as it is their richest region. By taking Carnatica you will gain access to several mines and plantations which can greatly boost your income if you can keep the Mahratta navy out of your port. You should also try and get a military alliance with the Mughal empire as they are also at war with the Mahratta's. Hopefully now you will have a decent income which will be necessary to take on the much stronger powers.

By now you should have roughly 8 different regions which mean you only need another 7, 4 of which are listed requirements. To be able to get these quickly and easily as possible you should first continue expanding into India by taking Mysore, Hindustan and the other surrounding regions. Make sure that you keep a decent garrison in these areas until public order is green so that you don't have to worry about rebellions. Now, wait for a few turns and allow your cash stack to increase. Once it is at a decent amount of 20k+ it is finally time to recruit. Make sure you scout out the last few regions needed to gain you victory so that your armies are at a decent strength to take them. Now, get your armies into place because you will want to try and take all the regions at once so that you will gain victory and won't have to worry about the backlash from the great powers you are about to attack. Finally, once all is in place, launch your attack!

Hopefully this guide will have helped you gain victory as the great nation of the United Provinces. The end part of this guide is not as good as I hoped it would be because I rushed it to get it finished so I may be changing it over the next few days.

Remember, trade ships are your friends! make sure you have plenty of them in each theatre as it will provide a massive boost to your economy and may prove to be vital. They are both cheap to build and cheap to upkeep making them a key part of anyone's empire

Diplomacy is important, much more so than in any of the previous games. Always keep an eye out for any other possible trade agreements as every little helps!

Do not let public disorder get too high in your capital city as it may cause a rebellion. While this can happen in all regions, if it happens in your capital then it will become a revolution which could threaten your way of government, so be on the look out.

This is my second guide for Empire Total War and I would appreciate it if you would inform me of anything that may be wrong and need correcting. If people think that this guide is good then I shall do more for both empire and other games in the Total War series


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Getting started : Great Britain (ETW)

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Getting started as Portugal (MTW2)

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Getting started as Milan (MTW2)

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Getting started : Sweden (ETW)


If you would like me to do a another guide then simply leave a comment or message me, I will do guides for ETW, MTW2, RTW and perhaps Shogun 2 or Napoleon. I will also probably make guides for RTW2 when it comes out.

So, after making 4 guides, soon to be 5, I was thinking about setting up a Steam group for general Total War discussion and where people could suggest ideas for new guides and give feedback from those that are already out. I'd like to know your thoughts on this so leave a comment telling me what you think!